Quiet Pine Trees Mystery!
Here’s the plain-text version of the first Quiet Pine Trees mystery, and the canon solution.
A locked house. A tall staircase. A dead butler at the bottom. The Moon is full. A lamp is missing from a table near the body. Music is playing upstairs. Payday was three days ago. Only four people were home. Whodunit?
With regular pay and a lighthearted atmosphere, there appears to be little motive for murder. However, any member of the staff would want to conceal their involvement in an accidental death. This is especially true if that death took place during a non-work related activity.
As with most workers, payday for this crew is on Friday. That means the butler died on Monday.
Since the family of the house wasn't home, the music upstairs was for the benefit of the staff.
The Moon was full, so the mood was romantic, or at least whimsical. It is thus entirely plausible that the butler fell down the stairs while dancing. But with whom?
The valet is off the hook. Zombies haven't danced since 1982, and "Thriller" isn't very romantic.
Gainful employment is a rare thing for ghosts. The gardener wouldn't risk such a nice job by slacking off on a Monday.
That leaves the chef and the maid. The lamp is the key to the mystery. It was likely smashed in the butler's fall. It is missing because the guilty party cleaned up the mess.
The chef's domain is the kitchen, and cleaning up a broken lamp there would be natural. However, while many are connected to cellars, few kitchens have staircases leading to the upper floors. Additionally, most kitchens use overhead lighting rather than lamps. Thus, the death was not in the kitchen.
The maid would have felt the need to clean up the mess made by the butler's death.
With her time-travel powers, she and the butler could also afford to spend a few minutes dancing together, even on a Monday. You can travel into the past to finish your duties at work, but you can't undo a death you caused without creating a paradox.
Therefore, the maid is the most likely suspect. She may not be a murderer, but she probably did tamper with evidence.
But, as with all mysteries, in the end, the butler did it.
